disappeared. two days later he was officially discharged from the marines and the lees returned to alaska. people kept having a fit because they let him go to alaska. reporter: meanwhile, detectives in san bernardino continued to hunt for clues, as to where erin corwin might be found. and they learned something that would launch them on a massive, treacherous search in the desert. coming up, danger in the heart of the desert. it makes me think of indiana jones. what would investigators find? when dateline continues. when . frontline® plus kills fleas, ticks, and chewing lice, and its fast-acting, waterproof formula protects for a full 30 days. with frontline plus, and new frontline shield for dogs with tick and mosquito repellency. you and your pet can go everywhere. no matter how you define it.
in. they re trapped. the garretts point a cavalry to the suspicious strangers sleeping in their barn. it quickly becomes clear that they ve found their assassins. this begins a two-hour exchange because they want him alive. eventually david herold cracks and turns himself in. booth still won t come out, and so the soldiers set the barn on fire. john wilkes booth decides that he s not going to be taken alive. he s seen what happens to men who s hanged, the loosened bowels, the eyeballs bursting. he s not going to suffer those humiliations. he starts to level his gun as though he s leveling it to shoot. the sergeant fires one shot. it strikes booth in the
expensive search that lasted for weeks and weeks, they decided this was it. saturday, august 16, 2014, would be the last day of the search. we felt we had one more shot at it. reporter: in the early evening they headed for the very last mine on their list. and as nighttime falls out there, you don t want anybody out there still, so we began to really collect our thoughts and decide, any minute now we need to start calling the search. a member of the san bernardino cave rescue team, a doctor in fact, came upon this mine and right away noticed a strange smell. it was the stench of gasoline. reporter: there was also a shell casing resting near the mouth of the mine. the searchers lowered a bucket cam. we received a phone call from one of the satellite phones that was out there with the search team and they could see what appeared to be a leg or some sort of a body part down at the very bottom of the mineshaft. that is unbelievable that
leave behind our s.u.v, along with two members of the crew, and carry on in billings hummer. this is really hard to get around. yes, yeah. i mean, this is, sort of, at times, white knuckle driving. yeah, there i have to admit. i mean, you look straight down, you don t wanna make one wrong little turn. yeah, yeah, one wrong turn can be your last turn. this is one of the mines that was searched? yes. reporter: billings and the other volunteers checked off one dangerous mineshaft after the next. we re monitoring the oxygen. so it s all clear. the next step we do is we always throw in a little bit of rocks. and you listen quietly for a rattlesnake. it s, kind of, a general protocol. this part of the desert, they love to come and hide out in these mines it s cool in here to get out of the sun. yeah, you see the temperature drop. and, as we walk in here, click your light on. oh, that could be scary if it dropped down. yeah. yeah, so this could be a false f
downside. so work in that environment, you only have a limited amount of time effectiveness before you re quickly fatigued. what did you see? a sprite bottle a rope a tire down there propane tank some plastic jugs a lot of rock and rock debris some railroad ties. reporter: and then he saw it, a human body. that sounds like out of a horror movie. i mean, to hate to say it like that, but to rappel down and see a decomposing body. we see a lot of death in this line of work. over time you just develop a method where you just ignore your emotions for a little while. and you just focus on the task you need to do. and then, you know, face up with your emotions later. reporter: baum first took photos while suspended above the grisly crime scene. then methodically set about gathering evidence and sending it back to the surface. the original plan was for me to do the whole operation, but i had been down there about 45